Wuhan Lab's Secret Bat Coronaviruses Revealed

Once upon a time, Dr Peter Daszak was just another ambitious British scientist with a fascination for viruses. Born in Dukinfield, Greater Manchester, he built a respectable career studying zoonotic diseases, working at UK universities before heading stateside to join the EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based non-profit that received millions in taxpayer funds to study emerging viruses.

Now, Daszak finds himself at the centre of one of the greatest scandals in modern science.

This week, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officially banned EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funding, dealing a potentially fatal blow to an organisation accused of bankrolling high-risk coronavirus experiments in Wuhan—experiments that may have sparked the Covid-19 pandemic itself.

For years, Daszak and his organisation vehemently denied any role in the origins of Covid-19, dismissing lab leak concerns as conspiracy theories. But the evidence against him—and his longtime collaborators at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)—has become impossible to ignore.

The Lab Leak Theory: From "Fringe Conspiracy" to Official Verdict

When Covid-19 first emerged in late 2019, most of the scientific community quickly fell in line with the "natural origin" theory—that the virus had jumped from an animal (possibly a pangolin or raccoon dog) to humans in a wet market. But there was one problem: after five years of exhaustive searching, no one has found a single trace of a natural source.

Instead, a much more disturbing possibility has taken centre stage. In December 2023, a US congressional report concluded that the most likely explanation for the pandemic was a lab-related accident at WIV.

And here’s where things get truly damning:

• The Wuhan lab was actively collecting and modifying bat coronaviruses—many of which were never disclosed to the public.

• In 2018, WIV scientists, with EcoHealth's help, proposed inserting a human-specific furin cleavage site into SARS-like viruses—a feature that happens to be uniquely present in Covid-19.

• Wuhan’s entire virus database mysteriously disappeared from the internet just before the pandemic began, making it impossible to verify which viruses they were working on.

• US intelligence discovered that three WIV scientists were hospitalised with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019—weeks before China even admitted that the virus existed.

If that wasn’t enough, Wuhan’s safety protocols were a laughing stock. Researchers handling live bats were seen wearing little more than rubber gloves and surgical masks. This was no biosecure fortress—this was a disaster waiting to happen.

And then there’s Peter Daszak, who led the effort to silence lab leak concerns from the start.

Daszak’s Role in the Cover-Up

As head of EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak was one of the key funders of WIV’s virus research. His organisation secured millions in US grants to study the emergence of bat coronaviruses, some of which went directly to Wuhan.

When the pandemic began, Daszak worked aggressively to shut down any discussion of a lab leak. He even orchestrated a letter in The Lancet, signed by 27 scientists, branding the lab leak theory as a dangerous conspiracy—without disclosing his own financial ties to WIV.

Now, we know why. His career, reputation, and funding depended on it.

The Fall of EcoHealth: Follow the Money

For years, EcoHealth thrived on US government grants. In 2023 alone, 84% of its $16.4 million budget came from federal funding. But as the evidence against Daszak and WIV mounted, that money started drying up.

US lawmakers accused EcoHealth of violating multiple grant conditions, including:

• Failing to properly oversee research at Wuhan

• Failing to report key experiment results

• Making misleading statements to US authorities

• Ignoring safety concerns around dangerous virus research

HHS had seen enough. This week, they suspended all of EcoHealth’s federal grants and moved to debar the organisation completely—a rare and crushing punishment that effectively blacklists EcoHealth from ever receiving US taxpayer money again.

Peter Daszak? Gone from EcoHealth as of January.

Science or Scapegoat?

Daszak’s defenders insist that he’s the victim of a political witch hunt. Some virologists claim that cutting off EcoHealth’s funding will damage future pandemic research. But critics argue that this crackdown is long overdue.

US Congressman Brad Wenstrup called it “a victory for national security and public safety”, while biosecurity expert Filippa Lentzos said it sets an important precedent for stricter oversight of risky virus research.

One thing is certain: the fall of EcoHealth is just the beginning.

The Next Big Questions

The Covid-19 lab leak debate is far from over. And as more evidence comes to light, the scandal could escalate even further.

What if it turns out that Covid-19 wasn’t just an accident—but the result of reckless, US-funded research that should never have been allowed?

What if world leaders knew far more than they admitted—and actively covered it up?

One thing is clear:

Peter Daszak is out. EcoHealth Alliance is finished. But the world still doesn’t have the full truth.